petrified.wad (4 map demo)

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Hi, I've been working on some limit-removing E1 thing that is themed around dark forests and earth. Only got 4 maps done (E1M1, M2, M5, M8) but I plan to map the remaining five...maybe next year? These were made purely for artistic value, setting, as well as for me to practice manually curving linedefs and such. Gameplay so far has no hitscanners at all and emphasizes snipers, hub layout, and lost souls. No level titles yet.

E1M1: intro map
E1M2: inspired by a nursery rhyme
E1M5: bamboo forest, might need to work more on this.
E1M8: boss map, easy to figure out. Made entirely in Eureka since I was well away from home at the time and I couldn't use Doom Builder on my tablet.

This uses resources from RETRES.wad. I'm currently putting this on hold for now to work on my DMP map but I'm releasing a demo now so that I could possibly get help with the following:

-Playtesting and bug reports
-New TITLEPIC and CREDIT screens (sorry, I suck at drawing)
-New intermission screen
-DEFINITELY want to have a new night sky if possible. I don't think I did a good job with this one.

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e1m1: Really nice aesthetic. Music is cute too. I killed 9 imps and then was like "Wait the map is really not going to give me even a shotgun?" and simply avoided everything else.

e1m2: This midi is the best thing I've heard in a while. <3 Also nice looking map of course. I avoided all the barons and finished with ~33% kills because that seemed like the most fun way to play the map. In the backpack secret, I wallran (which is effortless due to the geometry of the area) and linedef skipped the trigger to raise the pit imp, which was confusing when something was scratching me.

e1m5: 13% kills in 3:17 :D. The exit area is cool, but maybe the scale of the 'diorama' could be improved. The trees seem oddly small, and the the rocky wall is somewhat close. Starts off a bit like e1m2 with a lost soul warp in, the first key trap sends imps to a cage where they can't attack, which seems a bit silly. The natural design seems to be a lot like e1m1 and e1m2, maybe new elements not yet seen in e1m1/e1m2 could be worked in (swamp? semi-abstract reed details? more expansive rivers? pandas? okay, one of those is not serious :D). Also seems rougher aesthetically than the first two maps. Favorite thing was the mass pinky trap.

e1m8: Not really feeling this one. Earlier maps allowed for a freewheeling, reckless playing style if you wanted, but this one pretty much constrains you to cleaning up all the barons, which isn't so fun, because the map exerts basically no pressure. If this is going to be predominantly an arena map, I think it should be more hectic, maybe the cyber down on the grass, some lost souls, some spectres, and fewer barons up top. Nothing too crazy, but just something to get the blood pumping. Alternatively, if it's meant to be relaxing, it could do without the lost souls entirely (nothing but interruptions that the player will probably stop to clear out, not wanting to risk an unexpected face rocket), and with fewer barons, or at least a bunch of the barons moved to the ground. Another alternative is to give the final arena a more extensive prelude (a well realized medium-length adventure map in itself). Most of the settings are outdoors, so an underground map might present some contrast. Also, the underground part felt underworked -- it could use more lighting variation, if nothing else.

Overall, cute stuff, has potential. I'd caution against making every level look so much alike or play so much like e1m2/e1m5 wrt the layout, the combat (imps dotted everywhere, lost soul pop-ups, warp-in key traps), the progression (find key #1, find key #2, find key #3), and the primary aesthetic motifs (the trees/mud/grass thing you have going on). It might be helpful to explore more types of foresty settings that are somewhat different but not so far removed from the current theme set that they don't fit. :)

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i only played the first three maps but i liked this a lot. my favorite part was the exit area of the third map. i hope you have more settings - a desert type setting with lots of dead trees would be cool.

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Hi, sorry for the late reply, I was busy this whole weekend with real-life stuff and hadn't come back here yet. Still, nice to see this get played, although I still am requesting for a new TITLEPIC, intermission and sky just so I don't worry over it later.

rdwpa said:

e1m1: Really nice aesthetic. Music is cute too. I killed 9 imps and then was like "Wait the map is really not going to give me even a shotgun?" and simply avoided everything else.

There's not supposed to be a shotgun in the first map. I don't even remember putting any shells in it either.

rdwpa said:

e1m2: This midi is the best thing I've heard in a while. <3 Also nice looking map of course. I avoided all the barons and finished with ~33% kills because that seemed like the most fun way to play the map. In the backpack secret, I wallran (which is effortless due to the geometry of the area) and linedef skipped the trigger to raise the pit imp, which was confusing when something was scratching me.

That midi was taken from the first level in Slaughterfest 2012 if I recall, the rest is from vgmusic for sure except for one other one. Not so sure I did good with the barons, other than making them the three little pigs in setting, but then again, the baron sucks as a monster anyways with all that health. I also didn't want to give the player the RL in this one, but I assured this map was still possible to UV-MAX (all of them should, anyway).

rdwpa said:

e1m5: 13% kills in 3:17 :D. The exit area is cool, but maybe the scale of the 'diorama' could be improved. The trees seem oddly small, and the the rocky wall is somewhat close. Starts off a bit like e1m2 with a lost soul warp in, the first key trap sends imps to a cage where they can't attack, which seems a bit silly. The natural design seems to be a lot like e1m1 and e1m2, maybe new elements not yet seen in e1m1/e1m2 could be worked in (swamp? semi-abstract reed details? more expansive rivers? pandas? okay, one of those is not serious :D). Also seems rougher aesthetically than the first two maps. Favorite thing was the mass pinky trap.

The rocky hexagon that surrounds this map is an obvious placeholder texture when drawing the overall area and of course I'll get rid of it. Not sure what to do for the small "trees" since I am aware bamboo is a very thin tree other than having to put more of them as scenery mostly.

rdwpa said:

e1m8: Not really feeling this one. Earlier maps allowed for a freewheeling, reckless playing style if you wanted, but this one pretty much constrains you to cleaning up all the barons, which isn't so fun, because the map exerts basically no pressure. If this is going to be predominantly an arena map, I think it should be more hectic, maybe the cyber down on the grass, some lost souls, some spectres, and fewer barons up top. Nothing too crazy, but just something to get the blood pumping. Alternatively, if it's meant to be relaxing, it could do without the lost souls entirely (nothing but interruptions that the player will probably stop to clear out, not wanting to risk an unexpected face rocket), and with fewer barons, or at least a bunch of the barons moved to the ground. Another alternative is to give the final arena a more extensive prelude (a well realized medium-length adventure map in itself). Most of the settings are outdoors, so an underground map might present some contrast. Also, the underground part felt underworked -- it could use more lighting variation, if nothing else.

I honestly can't recall what I really wanted to make the end map as, so I settled for a "barons and then cyber fully defend the central structure" ordeal while there are other enemies elsewhere. I also wanted to make this heavily rocket launcher-oriented, at least with respect to the amount of barons plus the cyberdemon (although you're better off running past him regardless, maybe he should be outside), while whatever other weapons are used for the imps and lost souls. I was thinking about adding more lost souls anyways, since they are my favorite monster after all.

rdwpa said:

Overall, cute stuff, has potential. I'd caution against making every level look so much alike or play so much like e1m2/e1m5 wrt the layout, the combat (imps dotted everywhere, lost soul pop-ups, warp-in key traps), the progression (find key #1, find key #2, find key #3), and the primary aesthetic motifs (the trees/mud/grass thing you have going on). It might be helpful to explore more types of foresty settings that are somewhat different but not so far removed from the current theme set that they don't fit. :)

A good chunk of my current forest setting was inspired by the one map in Hellbound, which was very well detailed to setting. I sort of want to keep the forest theme going but I'll try something new eventually, since I have plans for a forest with lots of water as well as a treetop-style area with less space to manuever. As far as progression goes, only E1M2 has what you are describing above, unless you also refer to how you need all three keys to exit in E1M5 as well, although in that map they can be taken in whatever order anyways.

General Rainbow Bacon said:

I remember you posted a picture of this map in the screenshots thread. Put back that sunset/sunrise sky, that was much better IMO.

I wanted it to be a predominantly dark forest setting. The E4 sky I showed there was actually a mistake on my part when I starting putting in a custom sky, since I actually had no idea how to do that at the time as a limit-removing mapset (Boom makes it easier, but I am not mapping in Boom for this). Maybe it works great for E1M1, and E1M5 as well, but time will tell when I decide it might actually be the better sky after all. :)

gaspe said:

The forests look interesting, though I'm not really sure about using 3ODE44 for a building in the 2nd screen.

It's actually 3ODE45, but I guess they're both similar anyways. Yeah, not to keen on it myself personally, but then again, how else would I make the house of sticks (or house of straw, for that matter, as 3ASHALL6 is potentially uglier)? Not really good with house drawing in my hands, I think. I'm probably gonna avoid that when doing other maps in the set

Thanks anyways, I'll take this all into consideration next time I get working on this.